DC 1: The Start of Something
by JudyL068
Summary: The Sentineldotcom 1: More Sentinels start showing up in Cascade... what are Jim and Blair to do?


The Start of Something

By JudyL

July 26, 2003

I woke up with this one rattling around in my head. I've got a few other pieces that I'm working on that fall at a time much later than this story takes place, so maybe they are the inspiration.

Disclaimer: Still belong to someone else, but I'm still playing with them.

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><p>As I stood on the balcony looking out over my city a growl came into my throat. An unbonded Sentinel was in Cascade.<p>

It was becoming an all too frequent event since the dissertation unveiling and Blair's press conference. They just showed up, looking for us. We'd become the official ambassadors for Sentinels.

And Guides too. Although Blair didn't have the radar to recognize when they entered Cascade, he could identify a Guide when he met one.

So they flocked to Cascade, looking for help, for guidance and for the other half of their soul.

After the first half dozen unbonded Sentinels made the terrifying mistake of showing up at our door, word trickled down that they should wait on the outskirts of town. I pick up their presence and then Blair and I go find them.

The Guides are allowed to contact us at the station. Blair doesn't have quite as difficult a time as I do with his unbonded counterparts, but there's still a protectiveness about him. He tends to hover around me more, keeping himself between me and the unbonded Guide.

It's kinda cute.

I don't think that's how he interprets my reactions to unbonded Sentinels.

The first one showed up on our doorstep about three months after the press conference. I'd been feeling edgy all day. Shoulda remembered how it felt with Alex, but as Blair said, she was evil, so maybe it should feel different.

This poor kid knocked on our door about eight on a Friday night. Blair says I had been grouchy and downright unpleasant all day, but as soon as the Sentinel entered our building something snapped. I do recall pushing Blair into the bathroom and telling him to stay put. My next memory is hearing Blair's voice asking me to put the kid down.

I had gone feral. That's the only way to describe it. Blair, of course, did not stay in the bathroom. He followed me out and saw me open the front door. The kid standing there couldn't have been more than eighteen. He was lean and just a little taller than Blair with dusty brown hair that fell into his dark brown eyes.

Blair says I grabbed the kid by the front of his shirt, yanked him through the door kicking it shut and slammed him up against the wall. Sandburg tells me this, with a sly grin on his face after the kid left. He demonstrates for me how the Sentinel, that's what he called me, sniffed the kid, growling menacingly the whole time.

Sure he finds it funny now, but when I came out of the… well whatever it was, he wasn't amused. Terrified might be a better word. Blair's voice was shaky and his heart beat wildly. I know he was remembering Alex, but he was also afraid of what I might do to this kid who was so obviously not a threat.

Anyway, everything worked out okay for Nathan. That's the first kid. He actually already knew someone he thought might be his Guide, someone from his hometown. Some little burg in Ohio. He came all the way to Cascade for our help. To meet someone like him.

I felt like a heel.

But, of course, Sandburg was right there, smoothing things over. He explained things to Nathan, territoriality and such and the kid said he understood. He's attending college with his Guide right now. They haven't decided on a major yet, but Blair's betting it will be something in public service. If not law enforcement, maybe medicine or social services. It's hard to say how many ways a Sentinel and Guide pair could work to protect their tribe. They certainly don't have to be cops.

After Nathan, a few others showed up at our door. Blair started to recognize the signs in me and prevented any other incidents, except for one.

Most of the kids that came were young, from seventeen to twenty-five. Shoot, we'd even had one couple show up with their twelve-year-old Sentinel daughter. Fortunately for Tricia, her parents were forward thinking and didn't have any qualms about raising a Sentinel.

A few, mostly Guides, were over twenty-five, they were doctors or teachers, people in fields where they could meet and help a lot of people. Blair's theory is that they were instinctively looking for their Sentinels and being exposed to large numbers of people helped. Somehow these unbonded Guides recognized what they were and came to Blair for answers. We managed to pair up a few of these older Guides with their Sentinels.

The older Sentinels were scarce. I'd evidently been extremely lucky to make it as far as I had without eating my gun. Sheila was the first older Sentinel, she was thirty. I remember well how she must have felt. Paranoid, constantly on edge, fighting to regain control of her senses.

Sheila worked as a paramedic in Los Angeles. She said she'd always had a good sense of smell and excellent sight, but recently her other senses had come online. The assault on her mind was too much. She'd taken all of her sick leave and vacation and finally a leave of absence. We were her last hope.

Sheila was one of our triumphs. We introduced her to a Guide who also happened to be a paramedic, another way to meet lots of people Blair pointed out, and she and Peter hit it off. They're working together in LA now and plan to be married later in the year.

Jeffrey. He wasn't an Alex, but just about as close as I ever want to get. Jeff showed up about six months after the press release. He came from Oklahoma, a firefighter and he was thirty-six. His senses were brought online again after he was trapped in the basement of a building during a tornado. They found him six days later complaining about the bright lights and loud noises.

Jeff managed to make it for almost a year on his own, although Blair thinks he really did have a Guide, maybe someone he worked with. We found out later that a close friend and coworker was killed in a fire just a few weeks before he came to Cascade.

So Jeff came looking for help, took one look at my Guide and decided only Blair could help him. He tried to kidnap Sandburg, but by that time, Blair had completed the Academy and his self-defense techniques were greatly improved. Still, Jeff was a big guy, my size, and desperate. He had knocked Blair unconscious by the time I found them.

It must have been quite a sight, the two of us fighting over the Guide. I have vague memories of the panther growling and screaming in my mind to the replies of another large cat, a mountain lion maybe. I beat him. I won't say of course, because it was close, but I did manage to subdue him and somehow I didn't even want to kill him.

Blair's in theory heaven with all of this. But we're still not sure why I didn't see him as a threat once the fight was over. I think I felt him give up. Not just to me, but on life. Jeff went to the hospital and then to a cell at the station although, both Sandburg and I felt he should stay in the hospital psych ward until we could help him.

We never got the chance. Jeff zoned in that cell and stopped breathing. They couldn't revive him.

I'm not even sure that it was a bad thing. I'm not convinced there was another Guide out there for him. I know I would never be able to accept another Guide if Blair died. If Jeff was bonded as we suspect, then this may have been the only solution. But we'll never know.

The city is quiet below. The unbonded Sentinel is waiting at the edge of Cascade to the north. I wonder where he or she is from. Why are all these Sentinels and Guides showing up now? Have there always been so many? I don't think so. Blair would have found them, he looked so long to find me. So why now? Were they waiting for someone who could help them? For us?

A warm hand touches my shoulder and I turn my head to meet the gaze of my Guide. He smiles and looks out over the city.

"We got another one?" he asks quietly. I nod.

"You ever wonder why all of a sudden…" he starts to ask.

"Yeah," I reply. I don't think I want the answer right now though. It's a lot of responsibility. What if we are the ambassadors? Is it our purpose to set the foundation for future Sentinels and Guides? I don't know if I'm up to that much responsibility.

Blair would laugh at that. Me? Not take on responsibility? Not likely.

We haven't done so badly so far. And some help is better than none. When I think of the Sentinels we've helped so far and where they would be without our guidance… how can we not help?

And the Guides. They may not have the out of control senses to deal with, but that empty place inside, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Blair's tried to explain it to me, how he felt before we met. It sounds just as bad as what I was going through.

No, if this is what we were meant to do then let them come.

I wrap my arm around Blair's shoulders and pull him to me.

"What's up, big guy? You've been lost in your thoughts since I got back."

"Maybe we should set up something a little more formal for these visitors of ours," I suggest, the tip of an idea forming in my head.

"You mean like an organization or something?"

"Yeah."

I can hear him thinking. I can feel the pulse of his blood, faster now with excitement. His mind is playing out hundreds of possibilities. I smile and squeeze his shoulders again.

Blair looks up at me, his smile outshining the stars. "This is gonna be so great, Jim."

"Yeah, kid. Yeah, it is."

The end?

So? What do you think? Interested in where this might lead?

Comments are always welcome, please let me know what you think.


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